Canal Street Knives all have hand~finished, hand-sharpened fine steel blades. Take a close look at their blades. They are either mirror polished on both sides (true of most of their special factory orders (SFOs)), or your blade has two different finishes (all "open stock" items): a mirror polished mark side, and a satin finished pile (back) side - known as a "polished mark side" knife. The Cutlers at Canal Street finish their blades this way intentionally to show you their master craftsmen's mark. Special factory orders of knives are made primarily for the collector (and for dreams of adventure) and so the blade is fully mirror polished, in this case, for show. The factory designed "open stock" have runs of up to 600 (or more) knives, and are provided with the polished mark side, not only as a master mark, but also as proof they are made by hand. You can only get two different finishes on a steel blade when you finish it by hand. Mass-produced blades are vibrated in a vibratory bowl with polishing media "en mass," and the finish on a thus finished knife has to be the same on both sides. A polished mark side is also an heirloom refinement that leaves you a less polished side to sharpen the blade on. Sharpening a mirror finished side, generally speaking, is a more perilous proposition. After sharpening the edge on the satin finish side, we suggest you gently pass the knife to remove any burrs that rose on the mirror finished side.

In our Canal Street knife descriptions we thus describe the knife blade according to whether the blade was hand-finished with a Polished Mark Side, or a Mirror Polished, Blade.